Mix #131: Oldschool Trance & Acid

For this mix, I had to dig really, really deep: All of the tracks featured in this mix are Trance, Acid and Techno tracks from the 90s which makes some of them more than 20 years old.

For me, this goes back to a time when I just had started listening to electronic music and when the world was still trying to understand this strange new musical phenomenon.

When doing the selection, the most interesting part for me was to see how tracks I loved 20 years ago stood the test of time. I rediscovered a lot of hidden gems that I had almost forgotten but I also stumbled over many tracks that make me cringe today and that made me wonder why I ever liked them.

From my perspective, all of the tracks that finally made it into the mix are great pieces of early electronic dance music and I very much enjoyed this journey back in time. I hope you enjoy it, too.

There are few tracks I would like to highlight: First of all, my recent visit to the Dour Festival showed me how Underworld can still rock a large crowd today and their music still sounds very fresh. Many of their early works can clearly be considered as classics and to my ears they don’t sound retro at all.

Another duo that I don’t get tired of is Hardfloor who have been active since the early days of electronic dance music and are still putting out great stuff today. Their sound has only subtly changed over the years but even their early works are still very much worth listening and dancing to. If you like them then also check out my mix The Evolution of Acid.

I also rediscovered a compilation called “Hands on Yello” which was a remix album featuring remixes of original works by Yello by some of the biggest electronic music artists of the mid-90s. Starting their career in the early 1980s, Yello were a big inspiration for many of the electronic music artists of the 1990s when Techno, Trance and Rave really started to take off. In their influence, you could compare Yello to other pre-Techno musicians that helped setting the stage for electronic dance music like Kraftwerk, Can or Afrika Bambaataa. For this mix, I chose a remix by Jens Mahlstedt who was one of the big names in Trance at the time and is still active as a composer today.

Finally, I have to mention a man who was in some way involved in many of the tracks you can hear in this mix: Sven Väth. He was not only a musical pioneer himself but also helped many others to their first successes through his labels Eye Q and Harthouse (which just got relaunched this year).

Tracklist:

Underworld – Cowgirl (1993)

Koxbox – Acid Vol. 3 (1993)

Hardfloor – Trancescript (1993)

Sarah McLachlan – Possession (Rabbit In The Moon Mix) (1995)

Sven Väth – Harlequin – The Beauty And The Beast (1994)

Yello & Jens Mahlstedt – Ciel Ouvert (1995)

Der Dritte Raum – Trommelmaschine (1996)

Stevie Be Zet – Blue Illusion (Flat Horizon Mix) (1994)

Atlantic Ocean – Waterfall (1993)

Progressive Attack – Hypnoticharmony (1993)

Jaydee – Plastic Dreams (1992)

Emmanuel Top – Turkish Bazar (1994)

Hardfloor – Acperience (1993)

Tundras – Tundra (1993)

Brainchild – Synfonica (1993)

Brainchild – Symmetry (C-Mix) (1996)

Thomas P. Heckmann – Amphetamine (1994)

P.S.: The image you can see at the top of this mix is called a “fractal“. It’s a kind of mathematical art that was often used to illustrate Trance album covers or flyers in the 90s.